Sending out dried hides

I have a couple of bear hides to send out to get tanned. All the turnings are made and they and they have been salted and dried completely. My questions is how much can these hides be folded to get them into the box for shipping? The hides are stiff and I was concerned about folding (actually bending them) and creating a crease where they are bent and possibly putting a permanent crease in the hide after they are tanned. Hope you understand what I'm talking about.

Sometimes a little too hard is not a good thing!

This response submitted by Oddball on 11/11/2002. ( ) 216.208.65.84

Over the year's of tanning myself, and subbing the job out,I have found that a "rock" hard cape or skin can create a lot of difficultie's in shipping, and once it it recieved at the tanner. As far as folding, be careful nit to actually break the skin. If you have to stuff it in a big box, so be it. Postage is not as costly as a bear hide. As far as a crease is, it's never happened to me, but now i salt them, and once they look dry enough, i'll fold them up and ship them.